Halloween Kills: What Fans Are Saying About The Horror Sequel

2018’s Halloween was a somewhat unique entry in the long-running franchise. Rather than trying to tell a new chapter in the long story, it chopped out every sequel and told a story directly following the original 1978 movie. The movie was a rousing success, which resulted in two more sequels getting the green light. Now after a 12-month delay, the first of those movies is here, and while it’s generally getting solid marks, some fans have their issues with Halloween Kills. 

Some of it may be the simple fact that Halloween Kills is designed as a middle chapter. It’s the one Halloween movie that knows another is coming, and so it doesn't really tell a complete story. It also depends greatly on just what it is you’re looking for from a Halloween movie. 

Halloween Kills Is Bloody, But Maybe Not Scary 

The term “horror movie” means different things to different people. For some, horror is a feeling. A good horror move can truly make you feel frightened and uneasy. For others, horror is about the visuals, blood, guts and violence.  

It is, of course, possible to do both, but what seems to be the general consensus is that Halloween Kills does one really well, but is lacking in the other. If you’re looking for Michael Myers to brutally murder a bunch of people, then the new movie will give you that.

I certainly heard some people saying the same thing coming out of my screening that many are also echoing on social media: that while Halloween Kills certainly lives up to its name, Michael Myers just isn’t that scary.  

To be sure, if what you find scary is people being brutally murdered by an unstoppable killing machine, then Halloween Kills will scare you. But for many, there’s something else that, usually, makes Michael Myers scary. It’s not simply that he is violent. There’s something that can make horror movie characters terrifying even to those in the audience who know they are safe, and not everybody feels Michael Myers has that here.  

Of course, Michael Myers is still pretty scary to all the people he kills. Although a couple of them struck a chord with many fans. 

Everybody Loves Big John and Little John 

As mentioned above. If you want to watch Michael Myers brutally murder people, then Halloween Kills is actually a pretty great movie. He kills almost everybody with a speaking role in the entire film. And honestly, it sounds like most fans are ok with that part. There are only maybe a couple of deaths that fans are frustrated to see happen, but among them are the brand new characters of Big John and Little John.

Big John and Little John are a gay couple who live in the house that once belonged to Michael Myers’ family. It’s the house where Michael brutally murdered his sister all those years ago. 

The pair have since moved in and are well aware of the sordid history of their home, but they don’t seem to mind. They actually use it to scare some kids that are giving them a hard time. They fare about as well as anybody else in Halloween Kills, and it is ultimately the house they live in that seals their fate. Still, for as briefly a time as viewers got to know them, everybody kind of loves them. They just seem like really nice people. It's sad that they're dead.

Considering the way that gay characters are historically handled in horror movies, Big John and Little John are even more awesome. Yes, they are gay, and yes, they end up dead, but those two things are utterly unconnected, which is a sort of a bizarre kind of progress, maybe?  

But in the end, Halloween Kills is really just the setup for next year’s Halloween Ends, and people are ready to see how this story ends. 

Fans Are Ready For Halloween Ends 

One of the biggest criticisms of Halloween Kills is that it so clearly a “middle chapter” of a story. It knows that there is more to come, so while it certainly has an ending (one that has upset a few fans), it’s also a movie that bides its time and sets things up for what is to come.  

While not everybody loves Halloween Kills in quite the same way that they did 2018’s Halloween, the movie is largely “good enough” for fans of the franchise, who are now looking forward to what next year’s movie will deliver. Based on the title alone, it is promising some sort of definitive end to the story... at least this version of it. A lot of fans wish they didn’t need to wait the full year to see what happens next.  

Certainly Halloween Ends is going to have to succeed on many levels to make all the fans happy, but a lot of people are certainly hopeful that whatever happens to Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, it will live up to everything that the last 40 years of movies have built toward. 

Halloween Kills may not be the best Halloween movie ever, but it isn’t the worst either. It’s a decent middle part of a trilogy, or part three of four depending on how you want to count, and fans are likely going to turn up to see how it all comes to a conclusion. We can be very sure that 12 months from now, Halloween fans are going to have some serious options about how Halloween... ends.